Closer Look: The Mirman Welsh Investiture Hat

Posted on August 3, 2016 by Royal Hats

Royal Hats Another one of Queen Elizabeth’s instantly recognisable hats from the past is the design Simone Mirman created for Prince Charles’ investiture as Prince of Wales on July 1, 1969.

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It’s no surprise that this famous ensemble is included in this year’s landmark 3-part exhibition “Fashioning a Reign: 90 Years of Style from The Queen’s Wardrobe.” The Royal Collection Trust recently shared the following photo and video of the outfit and hat on display at Holyrood House. The video below gives a wonderfully close view of the hat.

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This co-ordinating coat and hat was worn by The Queen for the Investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales at Caernarfon Castle, 1 July 1969. The ensemble of pale primrose yellow comprises a silk crepe long-sleeved coat and matching tunic, both applied with pearl and bugle bead embroidery. The striking hat appears to have been inspired by Tudor prototypes. #Queenat90 #fashion #style #HM90fashion #instastyle #millinery #1960s

A post shared by Royal Collection Trust (@royalcollectiontrust) on Jun 12, 2016 at 7:47am PDT

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Here is a closer look at the hat we shared yesterday. This striking hat was worn by The Queen for the Investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales in 1969. It is made of pale primrose yellow silk and consists of a crown entirely embroidered with pearls and bugle beads. To the crown is attached a panel of silk with lines of embroidery which covers the back of the head to the nape of the neck. The hat appears to have been inspired by Tudor prototypes and was a style repeated on several occasions in different colours and materials. #Queenat90 #fashion #style #HM90fashion #instastyle #millinery #1960s

A post shared by Royal Collection Trust (@royalcollectiontrust) on Jun 13, 2016 at 12:08pm PDT

This glimpse uncovers a few surprises- not only are the hat and coat pale yellow (I always thought they were both cream), the hat is much more elaborately embellished with bugle beads and pearls than it shows in photographs. The level of detail is simply astounding- while the snood shape is not likely a favourite, the workmanship on this piece garners serious respect.

What do you think of this famous hat, now that we’ve had a closer look?

Photos from Getty as indicated

Catching Up With The Imperial Royals

Posted on August 2, 2016 by Royal Hats

Last Friday, Prince Akishino and Princess Mako visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. For this visit, Princess Mako wore a simple navy hat with short, rolled brim.

Princess Mako, July 29, 2016 | Royal Hats

Designer: unknown
Previously Worn: I believe this hat is new

Yesterday, Crown Prince Naruhito, Crown Princess Masako and Princess Aiko attended a ceremony in celebration of national Water Day. For this event, Crown Princess Masako repeated a white hat with flat brim and squared crown, trimmed with a pale blue hatband to match her suit. It’s not going to win any awards for vibrancy but its a smart hat nonetheless.

Crown Princess Masako, August 1, 2016 | Royal Hats

Designer: unknown
Previously Worn: July 7, 2016

Photos from Asahi and Asahi

Ogilvy Wedding, Twenty-Eight Years On

Posted on August 1, 2016 by Royal Hats

Over the weekend, James and Julia Ogilvy (James is the son of Princess Alexandra and the late Angus Ogilvy) celebrated their twenty-eighth wedding anniversary. We don’t often look back at millinery fashion from the late 1980s so I thought we’d grab the opportunity of this milestone to do so.

James Ogilvy and Julia Rawlinson met during their first year at St. Andrews University and married on July 30, 1988 at St. Mary The Virgin Church in Saffron Walden, a small market town in the bride’s home county of Essex just south of Cambridge. Julia wore a gown in white dupioni silk with a v-neck, fitted bodice, and full, ballgown skirt that swept into a short train. The dress is firmly dated in the late 1980s by the voluminous leg ‘o mutton sleeves trimmed with bows (a popular design detail that in all likelihood was also on the back of the dress!). Devoid of lace or beaded trimming, the stars of this dress are its silhouette and the silk of which it is made. Not surprising for a country wedding of a more distant member of the royal family, Julia forwent a tiara and anchored her silk tulle veil with a crescent of fresh flowers to match her bouquet.

Embed from Getty Images Embed from Getty Images James Ogilvy and Julia Rawlinson, July 30, 1988 | Royal Hats

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The bridesmaids, which included Lady Gabriella Windsor (front left, below), wore dresses in the same white dupioni silk with pale pink sashes and similar floral headpieces to the bride. The bridal party had a quintessentially English country look that might seem familiar thanks to the popular movie “Four Weddings And A Funeral” which screened just six years later.

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Princess Alexandra topped her cerulean blue suit with a matching straw hat. While not as tall as the designs we see her favour today, the hat had many design elements that seem “oh-so Alexandra”- a pork pie shaped crown, wide brim and lavish silk flower trim. It’s a wonderful hat and the saturated colour was particularly beautiful on her. Alexandra’s daughter Marina, shown on the right in the photo below, wore a classically shaped hat in black textured straw with a wide brim.

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Princess Alexandra, July 30, 1988 | Royal Hats

Queen Elizabeth wore a two toned straw hat with rounded black crown and flat, yellow brim. A wide yellow hatband and spray of black cherries completed the hat. The cherries were an unusual and fun trim and while the graphic hat did an excellent job of grounding the eye-assaulting paint splattered suit, I think the entire ensemble was so firmly rooted in the late 1980s that it’s best left there.

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Diana, Princess of Wales, topped her Catherine Walker dress and grey coat with white straw picture hat by Philip Somerville. The hat, with a short upturn on the brim, was simply trimmed with a ruched white hatband and marks a time when the princess was transitioning from the smaller, fussier hats she wore in the early years of her marriage to the more streamlined style she adopted over the next decade.

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The complete antithesis of Diana’s streamlined hat, Princess Margaret’s hat was textbook 1980s excess! In vibrant royal blue, her halo brimmed design was entirely covered in silk blooms on the underside of the brim that framed her face like a peephole in a rose garden. Attractive? I’m not sure. Memorable? Absolutely!

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While just twenty-two years old at the time of this wedding, Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones (now Lady Sarah Chatto) was already showing signs of her uncluttered millinery style and preference for classic hat shpaes with a simple straw wide-brimmed hat with contrasting hat band. 1988-07-30 Ogilvy wedding 3

The Duchess of Gloucester topped her red suit with a large boater style hat in straw trimmed with side sprays of flowers both above and below the brim and a monochrome hatband. The Duchess of Kent went for fashionable 1980s polka dots with her ensemble, matching her pale pink dotted suit to the bumper brim of her hat. It looks like the hat was finished with a bow at the back and a pale pink straw domed crown.

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The Duchess of Kent’s daughter, Lady Helen Windsor (now Lady Helen Taylor) was typically fashion-forward in a crownless straw hat with upturned brim trimmed with a large scarf of blue organza at the back that trailed down her back (see it at the 6:00 mark in the video below)

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Finally, Princess Michael of Kent wore a pale pink straw hat edged in black piping, placed at a rakish diagonal angle on the side of her head. We’re so used to grand design elements (soaring brims, huge feathers etc.) on Marie Christine’s current hats that the smaller scale and gentle shape of this piece makes for a great surprise.

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1980s fashion is often not regarded with kindness and while several design elements in the hats seen here seem rather dated, I think they are wonderfully elegant examples of the millinery fashions of the day. What hats stand out to you most at this wedding?

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Photos from Getty as indicated; Rex/Shutterstock; and Princess Diana Archive/Stringer via Getty

Best Repeated Royal Hat: June 2016

Posted on July 31, 2016 by Royal Hats

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June is always the busiest month of the year for royal hats and this year was no exception. Between foreign visits, weddings, the Order of the Garter service and regular royal engagements, last month we saw a LOT of hats! Fourteen repeated millinery designs stood out to you as particularly impressive, based on your comments, and it is these fourteen that we now face off to pick a single winner that will move on to our year-end contest for best repeated royal hat this year.

Click on any of the photos below to jump back to original posts with additional pictures and information on each design. Here are your favourite repeated royal hats worn in June (excluding those worn at Ascot and Queen Elizabeth’s 90th birthday celebrations which saw their own polls), in the order they were worn:

1. 2. 3.

Princess Michael’s black straw fascintor with veil by Philip Treacy worn on June 1
Queen Elizabeth’s blue Rachel Trevor Morgan hat with black & white feather flowers on June 2
Queen Maxima’s coffee coloured picture hat with slice brim by Fabienne Delvigne worn June 2

4. 5.

Queen Elizabeth’s Rachel Trevor Morgan turquoise straw hat with grey flowers & feathers on June 6
Princess Anne’s ruched blue straw hat with rose trim worn June 9 at the Founder’s Day Parade

6. 7. 8.

Queen Maxima’s Fabienne Delvigne designed dusky pink straw hat worn in Friesland June 13
Duchess of Cambridge’s flowered red felt hat by Silvia Fletcher for Lock & Co. on June 13
Crown Princess Mary’s cream straw picture hat with fluted brim by Susanne Juul on June 13

9. 10. 11.

Queen Maxima’s gold straw hat with raised ‘slice’ brim by Fabienne Delvigne worn on June 18
Grand Duchess Maria Teresa’s Philip Treacy black ‘slice’ brim hat with straw twists on June 18
Queen Elizabeth’s pink Rachel Trevor Morgan designed hat with silk peony worn on June 22

12. 13. 14.

Princess Anne’s purple silk and straw hat with calla lilies worn on June 25
Queen Elizabeth’s mint green straw hat by Rachel Trevor Morgan worn on June 27
Princess Beatrix’s lilac straw picture hat with flat crown and brim worn in Slovakia on June 30

Voting will remain open until August 8th at midnight GMT and each computer or mobile device can vote twice per day for as many hats as you wish. To avoid unnecessary influence, results will remain hidden until the poll closes. With immense diversity in the colour, scale and style of the hats here, choosing your favourite(s) may be a challenge. Good luck!

Photos from David M Benett, AFP/Chris Jackson via Getty; Rex Features; Mark Cuthbert, Max Mumby/Indigo, Michel Porro and Matt Dunham via Getty; Jens Astrup/Scanpix via The Danish Monarchy; EPP/News Pictures; Valentin Dupont, author of Royalement Blog; Mark Cuthbert via Getty; Rachel Adams via the Southern Daily Echo; Carrie Davenport and Samuel Kubani via Getty